I listened to this very interesting and highly informative podcast during one of my daily walks in my hometown of Austin, TX. Basically this is a tutorial on how entrepreneurship and venture capital promote economic growth and innovation, and mostly make the world a better place…

I listened to this podcast during one of my daily walks in my hometown of Austin, TX. It showcases research on the “economics of religion” by various economists and sociologists. I was particularly intrigued to learn about MIT economist Jonathan Gruber’s recently published research on this topic. Professor Gruber finds (among other things) that “[The religious are] more likely to have higher incomes, higher education, have more stable marriages, be less likely to be on welfare, essentially be more successful on any economic measure you want to use”. He also empirically documents (the somewhat counter-intuitive result) that religious giving and religious attendance are substitutes, not complements… (see http://www.nber.org/papers/w10374 for access to Gruber’s paper entitled “Pay or Pray? The Impact of Charitable Subsidies on Religious Attendance”…

“President Obama’s old Harvard Law professor, Laurence Tribe, said that he “wouldn’t bet the family farm” on Obamacare’s surviving the legal challenges to an IRS rule about who is eligible for subsidies that are currently working their way through the federal courts.”

“An 18-24 year-old from Florida or Texas who enlists in the US military has more than double the chance of bumping into a fellow Southerner in uniform than a resident from Massachusetts, Connecticut, or New York does with a Northeast compatriot.”

New York law thinks a burrito is a sandwich

vox.com

“New York’s “sandwich tax” might be the greatest fraud every played on New Yorkers if you don’t count the ones that involve rent or drugs.”

Hamas’s Civilian Death Strategy

online.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Thane Rosenbaum argues that Gazans shelter terrorists and their weapons in their homes, right beside sofas and dirty diapers.”

Why a federal court just ruled Obamacare subsidies are illegal in 36 states